Gabe Newell just sent out a message announcing that their has been a massive attack on Steam and Valve. The attack occurred Sunday through the forum. At the moment Valve is unsure of how badly their operations were compromised and are investigating just how much information the hackers were able to acquire. However they have concluded that the database that hackers managed to access "contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information,"
Gabe would like to re-assure you at the moment "We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating," Newell wrote. "We don't have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely."
The target of the attack appears to be the Steam Forums which were defaced. Its unclear whether that defacement was the intentional target of the hackers or whether they wanted access to the information Valve had in the database which was breached. The Steam forums are apparently off line while Valve investigates and tries to figure out how the attack occurred and why.
So if you are a Steam member you need to watch your credit cards carefully. Almost all of your information may have been stolen and could be used by the perpetrators. No reports of crime associated with the hack have been announced , lets hope this was just a group of cyber punks wanting to deface the Steam Forums and not something more sinister like trying to steal personal information!
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
